Travelers from North Carolina are required to quarantine for 14 days in these 3 states
Travelers from North Carolina will need to quarantine for 14 days in three states due to the spread of COVID-19.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will require everyone traveling from states with “significant community spread” of the virus to self-quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, governors of the three states announced Wednesday.
The travel advisory, which begins Thursday, applies to states with a positive coronavirus test rate that’s higher than 10 per 100,000 people, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote on Facebook. It also applies to states that have a seven-day rolling average in which at least 10% of tests are positive.
As of Wednesday, the advisory affects travelers from Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Utah, Texas and Washington, Cuomo wrote.
In North Carolina, 8% of coronavirus tests throughout the state were positive on Wednesday, down from 9% on Monday and 10% over the weekend, according to data from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.
State health officials have expressed concern about the rate of positive cases and other key metrics that measure the spread of the virus in North Carolina. On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert on the White House coronavirus task force, warned of “insidious increase in community spread” in the state.
He said an increase in the percentage of positive tests indicates more infections, The News & Observer reported.
Cuomo said in a news conference Wednesday that the travel advisory is a smart move for the area to keep its infection rate down.
Once a hot spot for the coronavirus outbreak, the state did a “full 180-degrees” — going from the highest cases and viral transmission rate to “some of the lowest rates in the country,” Cuomo said.
Now, some southern states are emerging as new hot spots. Several have seen a surge in cases this month, McClatchy News reports. And several are home to the 100 counties with the highest numbers of recent infections per resident, according to data compiled by The New York Times.
Three North Carolina counties — Bladen, Duplin and Sampson — made the list, falling in the bottom half.
“It’s only for the simple reason that we worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down,” Cuomo said of the travel advisory. “We don’t want to see it go up because a lot of people come into this region and could literally bring this infection with them.”
Gov. Roy Cooper said during a news conference Wednesday that he disagrees with the travel advisory.
“I think that’s going to cause problems for families and for businesses and I think we’ve all got to realize that we’re in this thing together,” he said. “But I think it also tells us that all of us need to be more careful about washing, keeping six feet of social distancing and masking.”
This story was originally published June 24, 2020 at 1:50 PM.
